The Abyss
Chapter 3: The Abyss Note: This article is based on the various psychological evaluations and scavenged writings of the infamous Wyrisana Lea'van, Realmwalker, Natural Philosopher, and marling Folklorist. This source is far from exemplary as she is currently being held in the Gimble Sanitarium for melancholia, overwhelming anxiety, intemperance, and general mania. However, unstable as she may be, she is still the leading expert in the field. The Abyss is the realm of "The Deep Ones", such as Cthulhu. A name some may recognise from the writings of Arthur Kowald's "The Hunt for the Occult". Similarly to feywild travel, If one were to delve deep enough into the sea they might find themselves in the Abyss. The Abyss is an expanse of overwhelming pressure, cold, and darkness of unnatural flat terrain. A sea floor covered in particulates, a blanket of minerals, tasting curiously of salt, stretching possibly forever into the void. Within these bleak depths are cities, far and few, rotting monolithic cities for the deep ones. Jutting proudly from the abyssal plains the alien cities are comprised of mostly greys, dull reds and some colour apparently non-explainable but resembling most closely a shifting pale violet. The entire realm lacks any natural light, any natural life, a realm without beings of any kind, save for the deep ones. The Abyss remembers the birth of time, and rejected it, Defining itself as the ageless gap, the space between spaces, the second of places, second only to the realm of the gods it is a raw, cruel, forgone prototype, belonging to a raw, cruel, forgone people, the deep ones, the first ones. The deep ones are a proud people, heads full of unimaginable cunning, a special cruel genius, a jealous people. The deep ones were created immediately after the creation of their realm. Note: This opposition of the ideology of time being created after the realm seems to not be a paradox to Wyrisana, however, much like the previously mentioned colour she could not relate this idea to me in a way I might comprehend.) The Expanse known as the Abyss is similar to it's inhabitants, an initial test, an experiment of life, and a test of creation, the first steps of imagination into the recreation of limited Paradise, and let me just say I am glad the gods improved upon their work. Note: The rest of Lea'van's writings were incomprehensible to me, writing in a tongue I could not translate despite my impressive linguistic repertoire, the only symbols I recognised, were from the previously mentioned "The Hunt for the Occult" of Arthur Kowald. However Arthur Kowald has been deceased for over a century due to the tragically brief human lifespan and so sadly cannot be consulted about his works, marlings are also notoriously difficult to locate, and the few I have had the pleasure of conversing with had not obtained the vocabulary to communicate properly the intricate folklore of their people, however some simple folklore was taught. The Following notes are my speculations and theories based on limited folklore I have learned, my own knowledge of natural philosophy and the knowledge of like-minded peers. If we compare travelling into the abyss with travelling into the feywilds we note the following: -It is possible for beings to accidentally traverse into another realm by travelling far enough into an area similar to it in our realm. (Eg. hunters and lumberjacks who have wandered into the feywilds by wandering deep into forest. -There are beings that can travel naturally back and forth between the realms (eg. Eladrin and fey.) From these assumptions we can safely draw some conclusions. -There may now be life in the Abyss, as animals may have accidentally traveled between the realms, and inversely leviathans, such as Krakens, (should they truly exist beyond sailor legend) may be native to the Abyss. -Plants, as we all know, need light to survive, and some animals eat the plants, so all animals in the Abyss must be carnivores, explaining the aggressiveness of strange sea life. ''Note: If one were to seek more information on the marlings specifically they should consult Larry Liadon's "Marling Encounters." '' DM NOTES: -scattered tubeworm fields - whale skeletons -there is life, in the deep ones and the marlings, but they obviously are created and also unnatural, dead thigns may also find tehir way into the realm now that there are other realms where they may come from, and not all from the material plane, and may be as alien as the deep ones to beings of the prime plane other life has since found its way into the abyss but all of it is not native to it, and they can not sustain themselves since there is nothing to eat, so anything there is scavenging whatever it finds, and lives alone until it dies, and it scavenged upon by the nextbeing to accidently swim into the realm. Unlike the feywild, the Abyss is not infinite, and the deep ones know this, so much of their culture and architecture is built with the goal of escaping thier realm to conquer the other realms, "The Loved realms", because their realm must be unloved since it had much less work than the others. The entire realm is contained within a giant sphere, the sea floor is the inside wall, and the water is all inside, so in a way the water is the sky, it is possible to swim "straight up" and hit the sea floor on the other side. There may be One plant. a Giant tree that stretches from the middle of the sphere to the other side, with trunks on both sides and leaves right in the middle of the realm, it is dead for there is no light for it. The Trunks and branches are covered in encrusted minerals, and not recognisable as wood, unless one were to dig, and there are no longer any leaves either. this "Mythenbaum" while it lived was the spark of inspiration the gods had that made them abandon the abyss and they then created the feywilds.